New report highlights importance of exports in southern Alberta

A new report sheds light on the Lethbridge region's ability to move goods. It notes ways southern Alberta can improve on its most important infrastructure.

A new report sheds light on the Lethbridge region’s ability to move goods.

It notes ways southern Alberta can improve on some of its important infrastructure.

The goods movement study was conducted by engineering company HDR on behalf of Economic Development Lethbridge.

It showed the local rail system alone helped support about a thousand jobs and produced $687 million in output.

The broader impact generates $1.5 billion nationally.

“I was pleasantly surprised to see the full number. We’ve always had a bit of an inkling and a general understanding of how important the export market is for Lethbridge, but getting some real numbers onto that gives us the ability to tell our story better,” said Ben Young, Economic Development Lethbridge interim CEO.

Southern Alberta has always relied on being an export market, particularly with agricultural goods.

This report shows just how big of an impact those exports have.

“The Lethbridge region and southern Alberta in general have a long history of growing a lot of crops. Add volume from the fields, and then we dump them into shipping containers and send them overseas for processing. And so, our value chain to market size is very well-established,” said Peter Casurella, SouthGrow Regional Initiative executive director.

Some issues were shown to be potentially holding back the region’s economic output.

Delays and issues with train servicing slowed down rail lines.

A shortage of truckers and concern about highway safety caused headaches for road freight.

“It is something we need to keep an eye on. But Economic Development Lethbridge, through Canada’s Western Gateway, we’re engaging with industry players and partners in the trucking industry to see if there’s opportunities for us to collaborate and to further strengthen that trucking workforce here in the region,” said Young.

Addressing these issues will take co-ordination between government and industry.

Some progress is being made.

The twinning of Highway 3 is expected to make the trucking industry work more smoothly and safely in southern Alberta.

“We need the internal communications because every time we get a new agri-food plant that wants to locate here in southern Alberta, they’re adding so many thousands of trucks to the highway every single year just to move the goods from the field to the plant,” said Casurella.